After numerous national and international awards, he won the German Music Competition in Berlin in 2001. This was followed by debuts at the most important German festivals, including the Schleswig-Holstein, Rheingau, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Ludwigsburg festivals as well as the Concertgebouw Amsterdam with a series of recitals. In 2002, he was invited by the European Concert Hall Organization to perform in the Rising Stars Series, which took him to some of the major music centres in Europe and the United States (Carnegie Hall New York, Wigmore Hall London, Palais des Beaux-Arts Brussels, Konserthus Stockholm, Konzerthaus Wien, etc.).

In addition to these appearances, Sebastian Klinger has played concerts as a soloist and chamber musician throughout Europe, in Asia and the United States, including performances with orchestras such as the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin, the orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, the Gulbenkian Orchestra Lisbon, the Hong Kong Sinfonietta, the Essen Philharmonic Orchestra, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Munich and Hamburg Symphony Orchestras, the RAI National Orchestra Torino, the Orchestra of the Beethovenhalle Bonn, the Staatskapelle Weimar and the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbruecken Kaiserslautern etc. As a soloist he has worked with conductors such as Mariss Jansons, Antoni Wit, Mario Venzago, Joseph Bastian, Daniel Cohen, Simon Gaudenz, Pedro Halffter, Antony Hermus, Oksana Lyniv, Christoph Poppen, Markus Poschner, Michael Sanderling, Shiyeon Sung, Constantin Trinks, Joshua Weilerstein and Yip Wing-sie.

Sebastian Klinger has likewise performed in top-class chamber music line-ups with many renowned musicians, including Valéry Afanassiev, Kit Armstrong, Silke Avenhaus, Yuri Bashmet, Lisa Batiashvili, Milana Chernyavska, Ana Chumachenko, Veronika Eberle, Tobias Feldmann, Liza Ferschtman, Johannes Fischer, Julia Fischer, Vilde Frang, Christian Gerhaher, Kirill Gerstein, Boris Giltburg, Janine Jansen, Gidon Kremer, Lang Lang, François Leleux, Alexander Lonquich, Yo-Yo Ma, Plamena Mangova, Lena Neudauer, Alice Sara Ott, Enrico Pace, Emmanuel Pahud, Lawrence Power, Gil Shaham, Marianna Shirinyan, Baiba Skride, Antoine Tamestit, Alexandre Tharaud, Jörg Widmann, Natalia Prichepenko, Arnold Steinhardt (Guarneri Quartet), the Belcea Quartet, the Fauré Quartet, the Philharmonia Quartet and the Rosamunde Quartet.

His discography includes solo works, chamber music and orchestra repertoire with the labels OehmsClassics, Sony Classical and Deutsche Grammophon. Sebastian Klinger’s recordings include the Bach solo suites for cello (awarded with the “Diapason d’Or”), a chamber music CD with Lisa Batiashvili, Francois Leleux and Lawrence Power as well as a duo CD with pianist Milana Chernyavska focused entirely on French repertoire. His latest CD is dedicated to works by Dvořák: the cello concerto op. 104, recorded with the Deutsche Radiophilharmonie under Simon Gaudenz, and the Dumky trio with Lisa Bathiashvili and Milana Chernyavska.
Sebastian Klinger was principal cellist in the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra for eleven years, where he worked with almost all the great conductors of our time, before accepting an appointment as cello professor at the Hamburg University of Music and Theatre in 2015. Since the 2022/23 season, he has resumed his old position in the BRSO – in addition to his own concert activities and his teaching in Hamburg.

He plays a violoncello built by Camillus Camilli in Mantua in 1736.

Photo: wildundleise